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#Post#: 365--------------------------------------------------
WORMWOOD (Project of the Week for 17th of April)
By: moleshow Date: April 17, 2017, 8:46 am
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HE IS RISEN?
in honor of Zombie Jesus, how about Wormwood for a week? we will
all have good fun with this one. i can tell.
#Post#: 397--------------------------------------------------
Re: WORMWOOD (Project of the Week for 17th of April)
By: moleshow Date: April 20, 2017, 12:40 pm
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(dont mind me, just bumping the thread because it got buried
under redirects.)
#Post#: 403--------------------------------------------------
Re: WORMWOOD (Project of the Week for 17th of April)
By: moleshow Date: April 23, 2017, 11:58 pm
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(i will have my review up later, but this one is extended simply
due to the fact that i, like many others, am busy. one more
week.)
#Post#: 404--------------------------------------------------
Re: WORMWOOD (Project of the Week for 17th of April)
By: zebehnn Date: April 24, 2017, 9:45 am
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one of the albums i need to listen more to
hanging by his hair and kill him are the stand-out tracks now
but ive only listened about 10 times to it
as i figure, this is where the residents
made a compromise With themselves
to dig deeper, as the 2000s were kinda Nice to them
#Post#: 406--------------------------------------------------
Re: WORMWOOD (Project of the Week for 17th of April)
By: CheerfulHypocrite Date: April 29, 2017, 10:26 pm
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Imagine the Apocalypse is on the way. Not the amateur one from
all those religious tracts. This is a genuinely possible and
total destruction of society and all of the things. This
Apocalypse would make the year 2000 indistinguishable from the
year 1900. Like all good literature, the Millenium Apocalypse
had been foreshadowed: on the 4[sup]th[/sup] Of January 1975,
the date overflowed the 12-bit field used in the Decsystem 10
operating systems resulting in numerous problems and crashes. An
alternative format was developed, but nobody really took that
much notice.
[quote="Amos 5:7"]
For those who turn justice into wormwood And cast righteousness
down to the earth.
[/quote]
Imagine having lived in a country for six months without being
able to speak the language. Not only that, there is insufficient
time to learn the language because you are the only one with the
skills to do a thing. Everybody is kind - generous, even - but
it is an isolating experience. There is very little conversation
that you can take part in. The Internet is not as pervasive as
it became in the 2000's. It could make you misanthropic. It
could also bring you to rely on books. Reading. It could also
persuade you the entire world is speaking in tongues and that
the rare pieces you can understand are hugely valuable.
[quote="Deuteronomy 29:18"]
So that there will not be among you a man or woman, or family or
tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go
and serve the gods of those nations; that there will not be
among you a root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood.
[/quote]
You could end up reading a bible exegesis called The Harlot By
The Side of The Road: Forbidden Tales Of The Bible by the
'amateur' Bible Scholar Johnathan Kirsch. Not because of any
particularly religious impulse but because it explains the Bible
as literature. The misunderstanding that brings the book to you
is that of a French Colleague thinking it is erotica with a
biblical theme and that, for some perverse reason, you might
like it. France has a long and respectable history of the
anti-clerical. The Philosopher Denis Diderot (1713-1784) wrote
nun infested pornographic tales while Georges Bataille
(1897-1962) wrote pornography under the name Lord Auch. The
French have a reasonable, adult and civilised attitude to sex
and religion.
[quote="Proverbs 5:4"]
But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged
sword.
[/quote]
Just before Easter 1998, I was offered a job in an English
Speaking Country doing the same sort of programming things.
Writing the same, esoteric programming languages, but able to
speak English. After a fashion. In the right light. In a country
rapidly changing as the Apocalypse approached. Good Friday 1998
was the official start of 'peace' in Northern Ireland. The
Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or Comhaontú Bhéal Feirste had just
been signed and the Celtic Tiger (An Tíogar Ceilteach) was
tigering. The world was awash with actual optimism.
[quote="Hebrews 12:15"]
Be careful that no one falls short of the grace of God, so that
no root of bitterness will spring up to cause trouble and defile
many.
[/quote]
So it was, almost a year after last speaking to any of my
family, living in a single room containing one bath, one single
bed, one cooker and one storage heater and no room for anything
else that I discovered that the Residents had released something
new: "Wormwood". To celebrate I went out and obtained a bottle
of Absinthe from a French colleague. Without knowing much about
what Wormwood was actually about, I celebrated by getting very
drunk and seeing la fée verte. From within a very intoxicated
state, living just between Donnybrook (Domhnach Broc) and
Ranelagh (Raghnallach) I conceived of the idea of not listening
to Wormwood until I had seen a live performance.
To make the entire proposition worthwhile I would need a copy of
the CD. Which would be a problem. I made some brief enquiries of
colleagues at work. In the process, I discovered that Wormwood
had a religious theme and would, therefore be censored. Despite
Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta, the Poblacht na hÉireann or Saorstát
Éireann or Éire or whatever it was calling itself these days had
not really left Medieval Europe. Despite being a country where,
in Dublin (Baile Atha Cliath) the ratio of women to men was six
to one and the average number of mobile phones per woman was
four giving an average number of mobile phones to male at
roughly twenty eight to one and Microsoft, Google and IBM were
all building huge data centres, Ireland had not really left the
Medieval Roman Church.
Divorce was illegal. Marriage was for life. Except where two
people came to an accommodation for the benefit of the children.
A future history of Ireland will probably include a huge section
on the number of bigamists and the size of their families. Being
Gay never happened. Except in Cork (Corcaigh) where it happened
if you were a woman life guard at a public swimming baths.
Despite which homophobia was not always a massive problem. The
name of the most prolific road traffic offender was a "Mister"
prawo jazdy - which turned out to be Polish for "drivers'
Licence". You could go and see films in the afternoon and see a
bunch of nuns watching Spice World to ensure it was not too
corrupting. The sight of veils and wimples in a cinema and the
sound of loud tut tutting while gently two pints of guinness is
something to do. In Baile Atha Cliath when bored.
I was still saving the world from the upcoming Apocalypse. The
one made of digital madness. By the time the Tour had been
announced I had visited the Residents Website and I had imported
a copy of Wormwood into Ireland. Thus causing an Irish Record
Shop to become utter criminals for importing notionally banned
material. This might well seem all very portentious but, bear in
mind the context. In 1969, Samuel Beckett won the Nobel Prize
for Literature. Being an Irish Citizen the State concluded that
it should honour him. Under cover of darkness, a Military
Policeman was give some money and despatched to London, to
Foley's Bookshop to purchase copies of his works. This was
necessary because he had been banned for the publication of More
Pricks Than Kicks in 1934. The basic premise of the Irish State
being the preservation of the Medieval Papacy virgo intacta.
[quote="Samuel Beckett"]
Jérôme Lindon
Editions de Minuit, Paris
13.12.71
Paris
Dear Jérôme
[trns. from Beckett's letter in French]
For the English reader the title sends us back at once to
the Biblical image "to kick against the pricks" (Acts of the
Apostles, chapters 9 and 26, concerning Paul). In French:
"regimber contre les aiguillons." In Italian: "ricalcitrare
contro gli stimoli". Which gives stimoli and calci as elements
of a literal translation. With loss of the assonance, and of
the allusion too no doubt. At a pinch just plain Novelle.
All best
Sam
[/quote]
The Irish State has a long history of mistakes. Including the
invention of English Literature. Which they then promptly and
repeatedly banned. The Committee on Evil Literature was created
in 1922 and reported in 1926. The committee consisted of three
laymen and two clergymen, one Roman Catholic and one Church of
Ireland, they met at 24 Kildare Street, Dublin. Which was not
that far from the shoe box I was living in. Dublin is not a huge
City. But there I was with three copies of Wormwood and so,
promptly, compounded by crimes in the eyes of the Irish State by
posting two away to other people in other countries. Thereby
becoming a distributor of Obscene Material. Such are the
extremes that working to prevent the Apocalypse drive you to.
Had the Irish insisted on banning Irish Language Books they
could, acording to Brendan Behan had encouraged the Plain People
Of Ireland to learn their own language.
By New Year 1999 I was told that I would not be allowed to leave
Ireland - and preferably not leave Dublin. The approaching
Apocalypse needed to be prevented and we were the people to be
doing it. And so, I needed to ask for a special dispensation,
when the tour dates were announced. This I achieved by
announcing that I had purchased tickets - I had not - for my
Nephew, Niece and Myself - to attend at The Forum, London and
that I had promised to take them to said venue. Without missing
a beat, the Senior Manager of a mutinational company picked up
the telephone and asked his secretary to obtain the crime
statistics for Kentish Town. Where it to be a hotbed of anarchy
I would not be permitted to leave the Irish State without being
summarily dismissed. They were taking the Apocalypse seriously.
While Aoife struggled to talk to someone in London to determine
if Kentish Town was Sodom and Gomorrah, Lorcan began to chat
about Wormwood.
When I described the Residents as being anonymous and their past
work being a little unusual I was quickly cornered into
admitting that I had not listened to Wormwood at all and
intended to only listen to it after seeing it performed. This
was a surprise to Lorcan who immediately enquired into the
Theory of Obscurity and so to the borrowing of the Compact Disc.
Which means my boss heard Wormwood as both his first exposure to
the Residents and as one of the Devout, an exposure to the
untraditional, demythologising, exposition of the curious
Biblical stories. It only dawned on me that Lorcan liked the
music - or perhaps I have called a memory into existence -
because he constantly whistled the first notes of the Burn Baby
Burn vocal line for weeks.
Having determined that I was not going to be murdered, abducted
or join Fagin's Criminal Horde in some bizzare rerun of Oliver
Twist I was given permission to cross from Ireland - via Dún
Laoghaire in a vehicle I could pick up at the Dock. Which I
would then be allowed to drive to London, Via Ynys Môn
(Angelsey) Liverpool and all points south to see the Residents
perform live. Thus, on the Friday before the 19th of July, 1999,
with the Apocalypse approaching I set out to hear something I
had never heard before but had owned for some months. I was
handed a mobile telephone, so I could be contacted, and set off.
First task: dump the mobile phone in the Irish Sea. Second task
check the route to the Forum. Third task: ponder what the track
titles meant.
[quote]
01. In The Beginning
02. Fire Fall
03. They Are The Meat
04. Melancholy Clumps
05. How to Get a Head
06. Cain and Abel
07. Mr. Misery
08. Tent Peg in the Temple
09. God's Magic Finger
10. Spilling the Seed
11. Dinah and the Unclean Skin
12. Bathsheba Bathes
13. Bridegroom of Blood
14. Hanging by His Hair
15. The Seven Ugly Cows
16. Burn Baby Burn (Rub Barb Bunny)
17. Kill Him
18. I Hate Heaven
19. Judas Saves
20. Revelation (Venial Rote)
[/quote]
Some seemed obvious. In reality, I would not be hearing any of
them until after seeing them performed live. The Live
performance would make them radically different. But to begin,
before having heard anything, I was convinced everything would
be some kind of Gregorian Chant, possibly in Latin. Having read
Harlot At The Side Of The Road I was convinced that the stories
were all some form of deviation from accepted, mainstream,
American Christianity. Bizzarely, the copy of Harlot At The Side
Of The Road had been purchased from Hodges and Figgis a
marvellous bookseller of Dublin. Catering to both University
College and Trinity College and to passing bibliophiles. But, I
was convinced it would all be in some kind of Gregorian Chant
because that is what you think when, at seven am each morning
you hear the sound of the Religious doing their religious thing.
I first tried to turn them into anagrams. Hoping that, by
rearranging the building blocks - as anybody familiar with the
Theory Of Phonetic Organisation might think - but I simply got
Venial Rote for Revelation. It was not much It took a lot of
effort to find other anagrams and, realistically, I did not get
more than the Venial Rote. But what I did get was to collect
relatives en-route. Relatives who had now heard Wormwood and
were brimming with desire to make me hear it before the Forum -
which would negate all those months of not hearing it and
confabulating an entire work within my mind.
#Post#: 407--------------------------------------------------
Re: WORMWOOD (Project of the Week for 17th of April)
By: CheerfulHypocrite Date: April 29, 2017, 10:30 pm
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Here I was, a code monkey saving the world from the Apocalypse
and I needed to avoid hearing what I wanted to hear. The only
real way was to expound - to rant - upon a theory of the
identity of the [/i]Residents. Which meant a lot of shouting.
Shouting in a car is actually a magnificent pastime when done
correctly. In a correctly shouted car, the passenger can believe
they are going to the shops and turn up in a city 200 miles
away. Theories about the Identity of the Residents frequently
work for shouting and driving. Thus it was theorised that I was
secretly the controlling mind behind the [i]Residents. That I
was, in fact, a member.
The Membership theory had, admittedly, a lot of holes. To be a
member would have had me being much older, much more American,
much more involved in music and - this is the most significant
thing - significantly more able to recall a large body of work.
Not just picking at things here and there. The whole narrative,
from my perspective, being shot full of holes. However, on
balance, I did keep wandering off and I did seem to know more
than was good for anybody about the Residents so I would be a
good enough candidate until someone more appropriate came along.
In my defence I had to say that I had never noticed being a
member. However, I was accused of having introduced too many
people to the Residents when nobody else could find their work.
This was not my finest moment. I was struggling to reconcile
what I knew of the Residents with what other people had been
told - frequently by me - about the Residents over a decade or
so. My niece had been listening to the Residents prenatally and
so was not inclined to believe anything that compromised the
idea that the Residents were somehow not connected to growing
up. What was decided was that one of the Residents is definitely
female.
The Female Resident is a theory that holds up well with
Wormwood. The clue is in the Bibilical quotation:
[quote="Revelation 9:15"]
The four angels who had been prepared for this hour and day and
month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.
[/quote]
The four angels were obviously the Residents and one of them was
described as a fallen star and the gender was implied to be
female because only one third of mankind would perish. Despite
the general consensus that Angels are sexless, this was
reasonable shouting-theory. Which meant one, and only one thing:
I was debarred from being the Female Resident. Locked in a car
where the distractable driver was attempting to trundle along at
seventy miles an hour while defending the idea that the Female
Resident was a male voice impersonator - hence Mister Skull was
merely miming to another singer who was offstage somewhere.
Later in the evening, Molly Harvely would be proffered as proof
of this wild claim. Indeed, the history of the Residents from
Zeibak through to Peggy Honeydew were declared to be the obvious
candidates. Which distracted from the allegations that I was,
somehow, a Resident.
Later - much later - there would be a cross-stitch pattern
created from the praying Resident cover to the compact disc.
This cross stitch was part of the proof that the Female Resident
is real. After all, what man stitches. Which was an absinthe
induced theory from some years later: if there are things that
are feminine such as cross stitch patterns then one of the
Residents is obliged to be female. The swirl of shouting and
theories made the anticipation of what the actual evening would
be like incredibly vivid. Unlike other things - such as The
Moleshow the whole of Wormwood was impressed upon my mind by the
live performance. When I listen to Wormwood or even Roadworms
there is always something missing. Just as there are men who
cross-stitch, there are parts of Wormwood that I am convinced
are missing on the compact disc. Have no illusion. I like it a
lot. But it is not all there.
It was only after the Concert that I actually listened to
Wormwood transferred onto tape and played at top volume while
trundling up the M1 Motorway. In the post performance haze, the
studio and the live merged in my mind into something that nobody
but me can hear. The feat of listening Live before Recorded has,
since the pervasiveness of the Internet, become incredibly
difficult. Bunny Boy made that obvious. For many people it would
be impossible to replicate the experience. In some respects, the
No Music Day on Saint Cecelia's Eve (21 November) as promoted
by Bill Drummond of the KLF. There are no points of reference
for other people. It is like the Gregorian Chant assumption I
made. It is very much like The 17.
The KLF may well be the closes that the UK has ever come to the
Residents. Not in sonic presence but in Artistic sensibility. In
the 1980's they may have been called the Kensington Liberation
Front by some people because The Manual was reputed to have been
written in a Flat in Kensington somewhen after Bill Drummond
walked out of the Everyman Theatre to get some Araldite. Later,
Drummond wrote a book called 45. A recommended read that
contains two chapters towards the end called Now That's What I
Call Disillusionment 1 and 2. Titles which mimic, marvellously,
the Now That's What I call Music... series of compilations. A
series of collections somewhat parodies by the American Composer
series. Drummond tells the story of how he and Echo and the
Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant flew home from the US to see
the Residents, in Birmingham Town Hall, of all places. There are
rumours of touched eyeballs. The same story appears in a
different guise in a different place. With the same touched
eyeball. Then the KLF left the music Industry and, later Bill
Drummond founded a Choir called The 17 as a development of his
interest in choral music after listening to Arvo Pärt. Drummond
claims, "all recorded music has run its course" and that music
should be a performed art form. Wormwood, now and again,
convinces me that is absolutely true.
The 17 is a Choir that gets together and performs. It is not a
recorded performance and there is an element of secrecy about
it. Only those who take part get to hear the work. It is, in
some respects, a kind of spiritual and cultural experience. One
which is unique. One which can be talked about but never
actually described. Which, is my approach to Wormwood. It is not
something that I can analyse in depth because I know I have
never really heard the recording. All I have heard is a mnemonic
for the performance.
After listening to Wormwood in the Forum, there are several
things that I automatically hear when I listen to Wormwood.
First I hear the Overture of Jesus Christ Superstar and I hear
the slamming of doors and the running of feet - we arrived as
the concert was beginning. I also taste chocolate. In order to
buy the Tickets from the Forum I needed to bribe the person at
the Box Office, while in Dublin, with chocolates. This was a
simple bribe to ensure they ordered the Tickets to be posted to
Dublin and not collected from the Box Office. The vagaries of
Ticketing meaning there was no actual way to send them to Dublin
and so they could be collected from HMV in Liverpool. Life is
not complicated. It just has details.
Our entrance was to be a rock star entrance. The sound rolling
out to greet us as we entered the rear of The Forum just as
there was a moment of silence. Silence is the kind of thing that
is very rarely actually there. Outside there was the sound of
traffic. I could hear my heart rising into my skull. Beating. I
could hear the Security saying, "It's about to start". Silence
is too inexact a name for it. We entered at the rear of the
Forum looking at the stage there were figures moving and light
shimmering. The entire room was filled with a crowd anticipating
something that they already knew. The sounds, I assumed, would
be familiar to them and alien to me. In the moment after we
arrived there was a tiny, still moment. In that, genuine,
silence I heard my niece uttering the words, quietly and with
joyful awe, "Wow. They are real".
#Post#: 410--------------------------------------------------
Re: WORMWOOD (Project of the Week for 17th of April)
By: moleshow Date: May 1, 2017, 9:20 am
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